The grumpy thread

[Guest Hooli]

Just fit them, its about -3% difference in rolling radius which you will never ever notice

 

Probably more variation than that between makes of tyre.

[danthecapriman]

From my own experience of schooling, I'd much rather have been home schooled in hindsight.

 

The school I went to was absolutely grim and so were most of the little shits going to it. I think with a better environment to learn in, free from the little bastards who don't want to learn and are just there to be disruptive and bully the nice kids (easy targets!) I could have done so much better in my exams and then got myself a better start in life. An enormous amount of damage is done to children when in bad environments and it can be very long lasting damage too.

 

The actual education itself, if I was home schooled or if I home schooled my own kids could be more tailored for that child's best interests. You could cut out the pointless shit like religious studies for example, if you and the child wanted that, in favour of other things. I used to bunk off for that lesson as I didn't give a shit and it wasn't of any interest to me but I got in shit for doing so. That wouldn't happen in home schooling.

There's no way in hell I'd send any child of mine back into the school environment I had to endure anyway. Social skills, friends and stuff can be sorted out in other ways.

[Cavcraft]

Having come from a family where a 'good' education was pretty much drummed into us (but clearly hasn't worked) by the time I was in my early twenties I realised that having a CSE in geography etc didn't really matter. I did then and still do genuinely believe that as long as you can read and write a bit and know a little maths or can use a calculator, you'll be ok in life.

Different if you want to go to university or something, of course, but if you want a job then for my money common sense, politeness/manners and having something about yourself will see you through.

[Jazoli]

Probably more variation than that between makes of tyre.

 

Yup, or the difference between new and 80% worn.

[Guest Hooli]

Having come from a family where a 'good' education was pretty much drummed into us (but clearly hasn't worked) by the time I was in my early twenties I realised that having a CSE in geography etc didn't really matter. I did then and still do genuinely believe that as long as you can read and write a bit and know a little maths or can use a calculator, you'll be ok in life.

Different if you want to go to university or something, of course, but if you want a job then for my money common sense, politeness/manners and having something about yourself will see you through.

 

Exams get you to the interview to show what you've got about yourself though.

 

At least till you're old enough to have a work history anyway.

[michael1703]

I think if I was looking for an employee and saw that person was a scout/sea cadet or something I would put that above qualifications.

 

You can have gcses and be a couch potato /bedroom hermit but I've found outdoor types just get on with the job and are more focused

[Guest Hooli]

That's a good point too.

[Louise2cv]

I guess, and we are miles away from this at the moment, there are lots of resources available. The curriculum is available, past papers and revision are available in bookshops or online.

 

Of course tutors or FE colleges are an option too.

 

A lot of the mature students on my course at uni didn't come through GSCE->A-level but through access courses. So I guess there are ways.

 

It's interesting the not being arsed to get up thing was mentioned. I had customers when I was working who home educated their kids. They said one used to love to be up and doing in the morning and would go out in the afternoons. The other liked to lie in. So they let her. It meant that actually both kids had one on one time and there weren't arguments about getting up on time etc.

 

The girl in question was sitting a further maths A-level the year before her in school peers were due to take their GCSEs. The parents weren't math geniuses as far as I know.

 

Of course it's also worth remembering that home education isn't a burning bridges thing either, you can always go back to school or go back to HE.

 

As for us, they are very young still and we are just approaching it as delaying entry or seeing how we get on. After all HE is very much the accepted norm up to age 5.

 

Just to add, I don't feel judged or threatened or owt, it's an interesting subject.

[fordperv]

Why is there a nice stack of tyres in my kitchen ? Because some fucknugget ordered the wrong size ! Gah !

 

IMG_1203.JPG

Oh no what size were you meant to get?

[Guest Hooli]

As for us, they are very young still and we are just approaching it as delaying entry or seeing how we get on. After all HE is very much the accepted norm up to age 5.

 

 

That's true enough & because I could read & write before I started school I found school boring from day one as it was revision.

[Parky]

Degrees are handy - I just got turned down for a job I was tailor made for because the HR department insist on being educated to degree level.

 

It seems that 25 years of doing the job was utterly irrelevant. Their loss, their rivals gain

[chodweaver]

^ glad you can be positive about that!

 

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[Cavcraft]

Exams get you to the interview to show what you've got about yourself though.

 

At least till you're old enough to have a work history anyway.

 

It probably depends what you want to do (job wise) but 'good' exam results don't always hold you back, a decent interview and coming across well help, imho. Obvs. like its all subjective though.

[Guest Hooli]

It probably depends what you want to do (job wise) but 'good' exam results don't always hold you back, a decent interview and coming across well help, imho. Obvs. like its all subjective though.

 

Yeah I agree with that, but you still need to get to interview to show how good you are.

 

I've been looking for a better job for a while, I can't seem to get to interview for anything even with several years experience doing the role. I'm sure if I had any professional qualifications it'd help a lot getting there.

[chodweaver]

Home ed would be a lot more difficult without the internet.

When it comes to GCSE time, there's a weird loophole that some colleges offering GCSE courses for adults will accept kids as long as parental permission is given - and the college may then receive the funding!

 

So my eldest started an entry level (level 1) course in business studies at 14. He passed and took English gcse the following year.

 

He had the choice of two timetables - one in daytime hours, the other evening classes. He tried both and chose the evening session because "they're all mature students and they want to learn - they don't mess around like the daytime lot do"

 

He passed.

 

The year after he took maths, Spanish and science...

 

He got a masters degree at uni last year and was in work within 2 months - nothing massively well paid - it was a zero hours contract and first, but he's earning and he's happy.

 

His first two terms at comprehensive school, before we removed him, were dire in every sense.

 

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[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Having come from a family where a 'good' education was pretty much drummed into us (but clearly hasn't worked) by the time I was in my early twenties I realised that having a CSE in geography etc didn't really matter. I did then and still do genuinely believe that as long as you can read and write a bit and know a little maths or can use a calculator, you'll be ok in life.

Different if you want to go to university or something, of course, but if you want a job then for my money common sense, politeness/manners and having something about yourself will see you through.

 

 

This, just this. 

 

I hated comprehensive to the extent that I deliberately got myself expelled. A non stop litany of disruption until they refused to teach me - the teachers were mostly wankers anyway with the level of violence that went hand in hand with 1970's comps. I didn't need that shit at 12 or 13 FFS.

One teacher springs to mind, Mr Russell who was a horrible old cunt with MS and who hauled himself around on a zimmer frame. He was a fucking useless maths teacher, absolutely hopeless. Anyway, he disappeared for a few weeks (we hoped he'd pegged it) and we had a supply teacher whose name escapes me. He was about 40 and brought his Labrador into class and of course the girls loved him for that. But he was a great teacher and he drove a mexico brown Rover 2200TC - 'scraper' Russell as we called him had a white Marina with hand controls. All he was worth, the twat.

Mr Supplyteacher encouraged me to have a proper stab at maths and I got a lot better in short order. All too soon though, he was gone and Scraper was back and I just gave up. Throwing a portion of Pizza out of the coach window on the M4 following a trip to the Nat. history museum was the final straw.

After that I went to a boarding school at 14 and had teachers who - apart from the odd arsehole - still inspire me to this day.

 

I have friends with kids who are just useless teenagers because whilst they do okay at school, they're on a fucking computer all day and don't know how to converse with adults.

 

The problem with the education system now is that teachers have to compete with iPhones, Facebook, Britain's Got Gypsy Weddings on Ice Factor and equally moronic parents who consider themselves 'doing alright' if they have a 93"plasma and a 2013 Mondeo on the strap. 

 

Is it me, or is this country just fucked?

[Louise2cv]

I think it's just not very well known or talked about. Even health professionals assume it means we are paying tutors to come to the house when we have mentioned it. Most people assume we have a classroom and timetable.

 

I loved school. I cried when I left. From start to finish I adored my time there.

 

It's only now after Uni and 2 "proper" jobs I have come to question what school actually did for me. I don't think it equipped me well for work or life.

 

Add to that my mom and sister work in a secondary school, in an average Midlands area, not rough... but the stories! Drugs, knives, a stabbing, swearing, threats to teachers. It isn't attractive. I am not keen on the exams in primary school or homework for kids in first years of school. And with primary school the kids we do see in karate are dropping the F-bomb aged 7. We know 1 little boy who has been suspended twice and he is 5 years old. Rightly or wrongly I want to protect them from that.

[DeeJay]

Come clean Louise, you're only doing home education so you can go on cheap off peak holidays to Ibiza.

(Only Joking  ) 

[chaseracer]

Just for a little balance, I also went to a comprehensive between 1977 and 1984.  

 

It was properly run by an inspiring classically-educated Head, who always wore a gown, encouraged learning for its own sake (I have a Latin O-level which I still find useful) and earned respect without resorting to corporal punishment.  In fact, he banned it some considerable time before the law changed.

 

The teachers were (in the main) equally inspiring and supportive.  Sports were encouraged (for those who enjoyed that sort of thing!) as were practical subjects and the performing arts, the last of these really building the confidence of this shy overweight teenager.

 

I loved the place and still smile every time I pass it on the way to visit the aged parentals.  That I completely fecked up my A-levels is down to me alone...

[Cavcraft]

Mobile 'phones and laptops etc all compete for kids attention, but I expect in our day we had some things to take our mind off school and keeping up with the Jones' was defo prevalent in the seventies. Having seen far too many people spend 3 years at uni studying for things that never actually got them anywhere afterwards, I'll never be convinced it's all that. Not for a minute knocking anyone that's been to university (quite the reverse) and genuinely admire kids that do, because it must be a huge step for them and really is a great life lesson, as much as anything. 

It sounds terribly cheesy, but kids knowing what's wrong and what's right and most importantly not forcing your views on them, as well letting them find things out for themselves is vital. 

[Louise2cv]

Actually DeeJay it is a bit of a benefit, especially with Matt's shift work, we aren't limited to weekends or school hols for daytrips/holidays. Educational ones of course

[Louise2cv]

To add to Chaseracer's comments, I reiterate that my school days probably were some of the best days of my life, I love love loved it.

 

I had many really great teachers too. Most of them maths teachers actually, a subject I loved but couldn't do (Grade N for nearly at A-level ).

[Guest Hooli]

I hated school all the way through, all it did was try to prevent my education. I can still see what it was meant to do though, even if it didn't manage it at all.

[Lord Sterling]

School? I found it a bit 'meh' all the way through. I think the distraction of living between Belgium and England and finding that I never really fitted in an English school (kids here were much different to what I was used to in Belgium) made me feel the way I did possibly.

 

To be honest, me and education never really got on. I never had the motivation then and I still don't now, but I know I need to do something soon in order to get out of the loop of misery I often myself in.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

School? I found it a bit 'meh' all the way through. I think the distraction of living between Belgium and England and finding that I never really fitted in an English school (kids here were much different to what I was used to in Belgium) made me feel the way I did possibly.

 

To be honest, me and education never really got on. I never had the motivation then and I still don't now, but I know I need to do something soon in order to get out of the loop of misery I often myself in.

 

 

It's the teacher's job to motivate you. If they can't do that, you might as well just stay at home and read books.

[danthecapriman]

To be honest, me and education never really got on. I never had the motivation then and I still don't now, but I know I need to do something soon in order to get out of the loop of misery I often myself in.

Must admit I'm much the same even now. I really dislike the thought of being educated. I hate doing any training courses at work and I'll literally try anything to get out of it.

I did one training day today as it happens. I just can't do it! I was falling asleep and I just struggle to be interested or put any effort in!

I'm more of a self teaching type I think. I'll learn the things I want to learn by trying things and messing about with things on my own.

[Guest Hooli]

 you might as well just stay at home and read books.

 

Which reminds me, why do the books they pick for English lit come from a list of books so badly written you can't enjoy reading them?

 

I still feel hard done by when my answer to the question 'What do you think the author was trying to convey in this passage?' was marked as wrong because I'd put something like 'I've no idea, the book is so badly written and proof read it's impossible to understand what the author was trying to say.'

 

The damn teacher had the cheek to say I didn't know how to read a book properly if I thought that. I countered with, that's odd as I've just read & enjoyed War & Peace. Odd how I was considered disruptive because I had a brain.

 

I maintain the educational system is designed to dumb you down to a standard level to make the population easy to control. Those that think are too much hard work to fool.

[chodweaver]

When we pulled the kids out of school, the first lesson was for us - the parents. We'd decided very early on, that we would have to write a curriculum and a timetable.

 

What was the first lesson? That we didn't need either of the above.

 

Instead, the kids were free to ask for help whenever they wanted, pick up a book or google something whenever they wanted. We didn't enforce a timetable or subjects at all. They chose what they wanted to do, and when they wanted to do it. You'd think there would have been a lot of lazing around. There wasn't. I miss those times - I was often working away from home, which put it all on Mrs CW, but I miss coming back to the open house that she kept - sure there were some kids that were a bit hyper, but there were more that were a joy to have around - a positive influence on my kids - and there was always something interesting going on.

 

The jargon is autonomous education and it doesn't suit everyone, but a lot of the families we met had been doing it for years and their kids were (mostly) well adjusted, happy, respectful, motivated and very enthusiastic about their education - and caring for their siblings and friends: bear in mind that many families end up home educating because of a disability or learning difficulty in one or more of their children. This means that in most groups of home ed kids, there will be a wide range of ages and abilities and they almost without exception have learned to work and play well together. This was not my experience at school, nor my kid's experience at school before we removed them.

 

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[chodweaver]

Which reminds me, why do the books they pick for English lit come from a list of books so badly written you can't enjoy reading them?

 

I still feel hard done by when my answer to the question 'What do you think the author was trying to convey in this passage?' was marked as wrong because I'd put something like 'I've no idea, the book is so badly written and proof read it's impossible to understand what the author was trying to say.'

 

The damn teacher had the cheek to say I didn't know how to read a book properly if I thought that. I countered with, that's odd as I've just read & enjoyed War & Peace. Odd how I was considered disruptive because I had a brain.

 

I maintain the educational system is designed to dumb you down to a standard level to make the population easy to control. Those that think are too much hard work to fool.

Yep, I still believe that school is primarily there to make good little worker bees out of all of us, ready for a lifetime of work. A flexible, malleable workforce is what our schools are expected to turn out. And the earlier they can get started at it, the sooner their mothers can go back to work too.

 

Yeah, I'm effing angry about it.

 

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[Guest Hooli]

The stupid thing is, look how this country run the world when schools taught kids to think & explore their own minds. The new way of preventing all that explains why we can only run call centres & banks now days.